A question runs through Latin America and creates controversy: Should presidents who leave office receive special pensions for the rest of their lives?

In recent months, there have been requests from legislators in the countries of Argentina, Ecuador or Costa Rica to remove life pensions for former heads of state, as Mexico previously revealed how much they cost.

This type of payment has existed in other parts of the world and in Latin America for decades, not only to compensate presidents for their work, but also to prevent them from being linked to companies or private companies of interest, experts say.

“You want to avoid this,” says Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College in the United States and an expert on presidential affairs in Latin America. “It is not good for the president of the country to sell his services in the labor market,” he adds in a dialogue with BBC World.

But he notes the specific reasons why his life in compensation for former presidents is now under criticism and review.

Several Latin American countries grant their own payments to their former presidents with different numbers and special criteria. Some also pay former vice-presidents or their spouses who retire after the administration.

In Argentina, the living pension for former heads of state is equal to what the judge of the Supreme Court orders, which, depending on their age, is equivalent to between US$4,500 and US$6,300 at the market dollar value (it is almost half of that as for the state quota)

Argentina’s opposition has proposed removing these extraordinary payments, amid the controversy that former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner receives two pensions: that of her and her late husband Néstor Kirchner, who served before her.

Kirchner, the current president and convicted in December for corruption, thus receives a pension several times higher than many people in the country who receive pensions below the poverty line.

Mauricio Macri also acknowledged that he will receive his pension as the former Argentine president, which also benefited those who were in office for a few days during the 2001 and 2002 crisis.

A law passed in Bolivia in 2013, by the government of Evo Morales, establishes the monthly salary for former presidents as 10 times the minimum wage “for life”, that is, about US$3,250 per month.

Although one of the last pensions of the president in the country, the proposal of the opposition to cancel them also emerged last year, as in Ecuador and Costa Rica, which maintain them with exceptions (the former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa lost his conviction after corruption, while the Costa Rican Carlos Alvarado one of his he replied that he had given up).

Peru’s ex-presidents also receive a life pension equivalent to about US$4,000 per month, although convicted criminals, such as Alberto Fujimori, are excluded from that benefit.

Other Latin American states that spend the life of their presidents on pensions are Chile and Colombia – among the highest in the region, equivalent to around US$8,700 and US$5,500 respectively -, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Here are Latin American countries which, in addition to pensions or for life, pay the former heads of state for various expenses.

From the Chilean Presidents, public funds covered the costs of transportation and office operations, which were, on average, equivalent to US$11,000 each November.

Thus, between these pensions and their life pensions, the four presidents that Chile has had since its return to democracy have received public assistance comparable to some of the world’s leading countries.

The current Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, will receive these benefits 40 years before he leaves office.

In Brazil, former presidents do not receive pensions, but are covered by public funds by law, for life, the work of six people for maintenance, security and advice, two official cars with their own drivers, travel expenses, hotels and per diems.

Until last year, Brazilian presidents spent an average of US$13,000 on these each month, although the amount varies depending on who is involved and when.

However, with his stay in the United States after the end of February 1, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has distributed some public resources in US$ 82,700 for the allowances of advisers around him alone, more than what his predecessors usually spend throughout the year. to protect the house and his team, reported the newspaper O Globo.

In addition to Mexico, other countries in the region have eliminated special pensions for former presidents.

One of them was Uruguay, which decided from 1996 that the first heads of state must retire under the same regime for any worker (from the age of 60, with a minimum of 30 years of work) and their pensions vary according to their history. contributions, limits established by law.

José “Pepe” Mujica, who was called the “poorest president in the world” at the time, retired in Uruguay in 2018, with the cash equivalent of about US$1,800 per month.

But the Mexican case drew attention after the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promised in his 2018 campaign to eliminate the life pensions that the country’s former presidents had received since 1976.

At the time, the video of a woman confronting former Mexican president Vicente Fox on a plane circulated on social networks, telling him to take away his pensions.

“Is he going to solve the country’s problems?” He asked the fox.

The Mexican Congress abolished the pensions of former Presidents in November 2018, after López Obrador was elected, in July he stated that these pensions of his predecessors ranged from the equivalent of about US$2.2 million to US$2.6 million per year. between US $180,000 and US $220.00).

The controversy over the salaries of former Latino American Presidents is far from new, but it seems to have gained momentum amid scandals, scandals, political disagreements and crises.

There are different ways of looking at the controversy.

“There is a certain and popular aspect about this. The idea is that these are the people who need the least help and we give them the most help that the state can offer, inconsistent with the idea that we are all equal.” said Corrales.

But he warns that the controversy also responds to the attacks on the figures of the former presidents, who have become axes of the opposition in several countries in the region.

“In Latin American populism, the idea is that the people rule and that those who previously ruled are the instruments of profit (and) corruption,” says the expert and concludes:

“Yes, who is a better representative of this anti-people elect than the politicians of the past and especially the former president?”

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